TY - Generic T1 - Being Present in Online Communities: Learning in Citizen Science T2 - 7th International Conference on Communities and Technologies Y1 - 2015 A1 - Gabriel Mugar A1 - Carsten Østerlund A1 - Corey Jackson A1 - Kevin Crowston AB -

How online community members learn to become valuable contributors constitutes a long-standing concern of Community & Technology researchers. The literature tends to highlight participants’ access to practice, feedback from experienced members, and relationship building. However, not all crowdsourcing environments offer participants opportunities for access, feedback, and relationship building (e.g., Citizen Science). We study how volunteers learn to participate in a citizen science project, Planet Hunters, through participant observation, interviews, and trace ethnography. Drawing on Sørensen’s sociomaterial theories of presence, we extend the notion of situated learning to include several modes of learning. The empirical findings suggest that volunteers in citizen science engage more than one form of access to practice, feedback, and relationship building. Communal relations characterize only one form of learning. Equally important to their learning are authority–subject and agent-centered forms of access, feedback, and relationship building.

JF - 7th International Conference on Communities and Technologies CY - Limerick, Ireland ER -